Golden
by smolder
Summary: They ran out of hair dye about a half year in.
1. Golden

Title: Golden  
>Author: smolder<br>Disclaimer: I own nothing. Joss owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Walking Dead is by Robert Kirkmen. I repeat, I own nothing.  
>AN 2: Reviews are Good. This has been a subtle hint from the author - Please return to your regularly scheduled reading

They ran out of hair dye about a half year in. And even before that Buffy had decided – just, fuck it and let the younger slayers fight over the last few boxes they had left from what they had snagged on their last supply run that had hit a CVS.

It was a bit strange to her though to let her roots grow out, to see her natural color and not be able to run out and get it covered with the bright California blonde that had grown so familiar to her. Buffy had actually forgotten what her true hair color was, she had been dying her locks for so long – much longer than she had been a Slayer.

Not brown like her sister she decided as she tilted her head and her hair (newly cut, by Andrew of all people, so that the brighter blonde was now gone) brushed her shoulder as sunlight filtered into the room. She was still blonde, just a much darker, deeper blonde. _Golden,_ something whispered.

That seemed right. Almost a dark, golden blonde now instead of a bleach blonde. Kinda like honey.

She smoothed a bit of it behind her ear absentmindedly.

It was odd the little things that the mind grabbed a hold of, fixated on to a truly stupid degree, when there was much more important things to worry about. But, that's how her life had always been and Buffy had finally accepted it many years, and many apocalypses, ago.

With a last smile at her reflection she re-sheathed her scythe at her right hip, her machete on the left, picked her sawed off shotgun off the vanity table, patted her belt to double check her extra ammo, and left the room to join the others.

Zombie hordes to go fight off and all that jazz..


	2. Horde Against Horde

Title: Horde Against Horde  
>Author: smolder<br>Disclaimer: I own nothing. Joss owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Walking Dead is by Robert Kirkmen. I repeat, I own nothing.  
>AN: Reviews are Good. This has been a subtle hint from the author - Please return to your regularly scheduled reading.

They were always loud when they fought.

Purposefully.

The world was so quiet now. The few who were still alive were forced to hide – huddled quietly and fearfully in their homes awaiting the end.

They wouldn't do that. Couldn't even if they wanted to.

They were Slayers, Slayers on the hunt. Screaming wide-eyed defiance at the top of their lungs – hundreds of Xena calls, once practiced laughingly, now used resolutely against these dead unnatural creatures that defiled their world. A savage joy in this violence heavily tinged in sense of vengeance – vengeance for the person this zombie was before the bite took over, before it became this thing that it was now _more than _a mercy to kill. A feeling of essential eradication that was triggered on sight by these mindless creatures that had overtaken everything so quickly and without any warning.

No prophesies or Slayer dreams to preface this apocalypse. (Nice going PTB.)

They all traveled as a group, no one any longer aloud to patrol alone like they used to. They fought the zombies, army against army. Horde against horde.

Little girls sharpening knives and smiling into the darkness, giving it something to fear, like their sisters had for thousands of years now. This felt right. This is what they were born for – why they had agreed to be strong.

Army against army. Horde against horde.

Slayers always won.

Death was their gift..


	3. Buddy System

Title: Buddy System  
>Author: smolder<br>Disclaimer: I own nothing. Joss owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Walking Dead is by Robert Kirkmen. I repeat, I own nothing.  
>AN: Reviews are Good. This has been a subtle hint from the author - Please return to your regularly scheduled reading.

There was a buddy system in place.

A person who you would take turns checking over after each battle for bites. In the heat of fighting, with nerves singing and adrenaline pumping, no one could trust what they were truly feeling – if that slash had been nails or teeth. That kind of trust, that kind of responsibility could only be placed with someone else.

And it wasn't just a random person (not that anyone in their group was truly random) - they were your partner, they quickly became your closest companion. It was necessity.

They were the one who was going to kill you.

A brutal arrangement. A necessary arrangement. Survival. Call it what you will.

Every bite found was dealt with swiftly, decisively, and no one fought it. Once recognized by your partner, you got on your knees and you were taken care of before you became uncontrollable - before fever or delirium, before you became _a thing_ that would have to be fought. A slayer never _never_ wanted to become something that needed to be hunted by its sister, the very thought conflicted with their natures. There was honor in this acceptance – they didn't _want_ to die, but they would much rather die than put others in danger, put their friends, their _family_, in danger.

There was actually comfort for many in the system in place. In knowing that this person who's body you knew better than your own (from so, so, many days and nights of checks) would be the one to make sure yours didn't come back to life.

They would never lie – never risk the group. They would be respectful. They would make it quick.

And you knew, you sure as hell knew (as you kept your eyes open the entire time, locked on theirs, watching the blade arch down towards you), that they would fight all the harder every hour, every second, after they grimly enacted their final responsibility to you - for the anger and powerless horror they felt when their eyes first noted that bite on their best friends' skin.

After the body is burned, they would be paired with someone else.


	4. Choice

Title: Choice  
>Author: smolder<br>Disclaimer: I own nothing. Joss owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Walking Dead is by Robert Kirkmen. I repeat, I own nothing.  
>AN: Reviews are Good. This has been a subtle hint from the author - Please return to your regularly scheduled reading.

Her power is different now.

Willow almost feels like she should just say that every few years just for good measure.

But it's true.

She was afraid at first that she was slipping, slipping into the dark and vengeance-based magics with which she was so intimately familiar. But although this did feel familiar, it took her a stupidly long time to recognize it, especially given with whom she was surrounded these days.

It wasn't until Buffy playful leaned against her and the Scythe at her hip bumped into her that it all clicked into place.

The power she was tuned into - the reason she was screaming just as loud as anyone, growling and laughing triumphantly when she let loose streams of pure magical energy that sliced through body parts with a glee she had never quite had for fighting the undead previously – was purely Slayer in nature.

When things got bad all those months ago, when the line between epidemic and supernatural became utterly negligible (then simply erased after watching the change of one of their own), the Scoobies all gathered together. And they decided what they must do.

Kneeling beside the collapsed Hellmouth, holding the Scythe aloft with both Buffy and Faith placing a hand on each shoulder, she called all the Slayers around the world to her. To this place where they had answered the call once before to be strong. She asked again – gave them a choice, to gather, to join them.

To hunt.

No one said no.

She hasn't felt the same since. The power of the Slayers has cycled through her twice now. She isn't the same Willow anymore; she has changed, how couldn't she?

Perhaps it is for the best - perhaps not. But it _is_ and she agreed to it. _They_ had a choice and so did _she_.

Now she just has to live with it.

Live and fight.


	5. Vital

Title: Horde Against Horde  
>Author: smolder<br>Disclaimer: I own nothing. Joss owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Walking Dead is by Robert Kirkmen. I repeat, I own nothing.  
>AN: Reviews are Good. This has been a subtle hint from the author - Please return to your regularly scheduled reading.

The first few entries she wrote felt wrong. She shouldn't be the one doing this. It wasn't her place.

But there was no one else.

And Dawn knew that recording this – what had happened, how they lived, the way the world now existed - was vital. Keeping their history was vital.

And that made her vital too.

That might seem self-centered but Dawn was able to quickly recognize that she would not be able to fight with the others. That had been a bitter pill to swallow – she had so long struggled to be recognized as physically capable by her sister only to see that here, here she was left in the dust.

Because this sort of fighting was nothing like the way they used to fight vampires. This was a berserker fighting style – no one really looking out for anyone else, but somehow instinctively knowing where their sister slayers were on the field. Swords, knives, magic, bullets, and arrows flashing in a spontaneous dance of annihilation.

She was just in the way.

Lying on her stomach and watching from under the shield Andrew had created, Dawn knew she had to find a way to make herself useful to the group. She refused to simply be one who was protected because she was Buffy's sister or the Key this time around.

She might not be able to fight with them, but she _would _prove that she was necessary to them.

She observed, she recorded – every city re-taken, every death of one of their own, every new custom – the building blocks of this warrior society that was being created before her eyes.

Dawn talked to the girls, got a translator when there was a language barrier. She asked about their lives before this - family, school, what music they liked, places they went to once on vacation, how the African savanna looked in spring, seeing the aurora borealis for the first time, stuffed animals they had since they were children, how it had felt when they had first been called. She made sure she had a clear record of everyone.

They were all important. Everyone would be recorded. Everyone would be remembered. Written by hand, in her careful scratchy writing, with promotional No.2 pencils from some random bank in one of the many composition books they had found a bulk supply of in that warehouse in Phoenix.

It wasn't her place, she still felt that way (just a _bit_ less every day) but Dawn hoped Giles would have approved.


	6. Lunar

Title: Lunar  
>Author: smolder<br>Disclaimer: I own nothing. Joss owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Walking Dead is by Robert Kirkmen. I repeat, I own nothing.  
>AN: Reviews are Good. This has been a subtle hint from the author - Please return to your regularly scheduled reading

It was hard to keep track of the movement of time – hours, days of the week, months. Most didn't even try, it wasn't really important to their daily life anymore.

They did look to the sky at night though, they tracked the passage of the moon, and when it was full – oh, when it was full they _danced._

Faith was blamed for starting it. One day when the atmosphere was too heavy - when the smoke from their campfires mingled heavily in the air with the smoke from the cremation of too many of their sisters uphill – she slapped her legs, grabbed the girl beside her, stood up and started dancing. Utterly defiant of all eyes on her.

She moved around the camp grabbing random people encouraging their participations with the undulations of her own body. After a minute of awkwardness and confusion, someone started to hum. Then another person started to clap in time. Soon more were dancing of their own violation.

Jumping over the low fires, clapping, humming, laughing, singing, a random carved wooden flute playing somewhere in the distance – a mass of people letting off steam. Living as loudly as they fought.

Every full moon, they remember to be human..


	7. Wishes

Title: Wishes  
>Author: smolder<br>Disclaimer: I own nothing. Joss owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Walking Dead is by Robert Kirkmen. I repeat, I own nothing.  
>AN: Reviews are Good. This has been a subtle hint from the author - Please return to your regularly scheduled reading.

Smiling, Xander climbed the tree - making sure his safety was in place and pushing the gun strapped loosely to his chest around to his back first.

After situating himself, he carefully eyed the mêlée through his crosshairs, lined up a shot, and watched a zombie go down, moving with the kickback with the ease of familiarity. Calmly, he repeated the process.

Most of the slayers didn't feel comfortable with guns. Either they deep down thought they weren't meant to use them or they simply weren't trained with them - making the firearms a useless tool in this sort of fighting where random shooting would be much more of a danger to friend than foe. Those few who had previous experience were given one, but even they seemed to find it more natural to go for a blade in the heat of battle. That meant most of the various firearms they gathered went to him or, after he had trained them, Dawn and Andrew.

He actually thought about Anya when he did this though. That probably wasn't a good thing, probably wasn't healthy in any way – but, hey, he did.

He didn't want her to be here – didn't want her to somehow be magically alive again and be living this harsh day to day life with him (sleeping in a large group of Slayers, always on the move, chasing a huge mass target you're trying to eliminate). For one he has seen first hand how it is when someone is ripped from heaven (and he refuses to believe Anya is anywhere but heaven) and for another she would have hated this.

What Xander thinks about, what his mind daydreams as he mechanically reloads, is how he would tell this tale to her.

Sometimes after they had sex, when she was soft and relaxed against him, she would tell him stories. Not tales of vengeance, but just of her life. And Xander was always continually baffled in those moments by her age despite how young she looked, how young she often acted. But Anya had seen so much of this world and its people. Mostly bad, yeah, but still – she still held this curiosity and wonder for it under a layer of cynicism.

If he could, Xander wishes (figuratively, of course) he could have one more night with Anya. They had pretty much cleared the air near the end of Hellmouth (the end of her) and started back on the way towards being friends and possibly someday having a relationship again. He wishes (again, figuratively – you can't be too careful, even in your own head) he had one night to apologize again, to make love to her in the bed that they once shared, what feels like forever ago, in their apartment back in Sunnydale. And afterwards he would hold her and tell her about this fall. This fall of humanity that no one saw coming. He would tell it to her like one of those gritty sci-fi novels he's always loved. Realistic and engrossing, moving his hands around for emphasis sometimes like she used to.

He just wanted the right words.

Xander carefully lined up another shot..


	8. Preserve

Title: Perserve  
>Author: smolder<br>Disclaimer: I own nothing. Joss owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Walking Dead is by Robert Kirkmen. I repeat, I own nothing.  
>AN: Reviews are Good. This has been a subtle hint from the author - Please return to your regularly scheduled reading

Squeals of a certain decibel, once reserved for finding a first edition limited release comic book, were now given to salt. Ordinary table salt. Andrew had never given the common supplement the appreciation it deserved but now he understood its supreme importance.

Because he had an army of Slayers to feed and food – well, food had become a form of currency for them.

It was not difficult to make the girls fight. Oh no, there was never any contention over the fighting. There be zombies. There be Slayers. Slayers kill zombies.

The chores were another matter entirely.

When dealing with somewhere around a thousand girls (he had to remember to ask Dawn for the official number) traveling on foot and living outside, there were practical matters to consider.

Weapons were always primary on the Slayers' mind and once acquired, gladly most didn't need much push to be reminded to maintain them. They were necessary. And the girls seemed to feel that deep down in there bones.

Clothing was another important one though. Everyone started this with the clothing on their back. And even by now, through quite a few runs through malls, no one had many changes of clothes. What you did have was well worn from many battles, hand-cleanings and repairs with needle and thread.

They started using the tents more, instead of only during bad weather, when it started getting colder. The problem that arose with this was carrying. The weight wasn't an issue but most found it a hindrance especially since it took time to remove it and join the attack if zombies were felt close by.

Carrying anything really was something the Slayers seemed to loath. It took the most pushing to get them to remember to drop their packs in a safe place before they went off screaming into the group than everything else combined. Once they spotted the opposing horde, spotted _prey_, everything else became secondary.

But food, food was all important. If they didn't eat they couldn't survive to fight. As they travelled those that knew how to hunt in the classical sense – hunt _animals_ that is – or who had knowledge about edible plants they could forage, would spread out into forests and such surrounding area. These girls were coming to be teasingly known as Artemis'.

There were also certain other Slayers who were surprisingly skilled at some things that were unexpected. He remembers seeing Buffy just standing and watching in amazement as a circle of the girls who were lopping off heads earlier made new clothing by hand from some fabric they had run across in those warehouse by the docks – hands flashing with quick tight stitches while keeping up a steady stream of conversation.

(Warehouses always seemed to be a boon to them. The zombies had no reason to go near them and no one else seemed to have the idea to loot them. But growing up in Sunnydale, a town that seemed to have consisted of two sections – graveyards and the warehouse district (with just some room thrown in on the side for such inconsequential things like homes, schools, etc.) it was obvious where they might get a lot of their supplies.)

But not everyone had a proficiency that was useful in this post-technology world they were living in. And there were plenty of things such as digging latrines or gathering firewood that no one really enjoyed doing.

So, the thing they stumbled across to enforce everyone's participation was food.

It was an odd sort of set up they had. You could sign up for certain chores, certain things you were good at and consistently doing those things would get you points. And the shittier jobs garnered extra points. The person with the most points got to choose what food everyone ate from the choices they had available or they could pass and hope they ran across a better old supermarket with non-perishable items at a later date or someone shot fresh bison tomorrow.

(He also had a fresh appreciation these days for how much meat was on a bison. He always had a vague feeling they were big but...damn.)

So, while every time they looted an abandoned house, while the others would look for clothing, weapons, ammo, blankets, books, or soap. _He_ goes straight to the kitchen's spice cabinet every time. _He _looks for rosemary, cinnamon, cloves, garlic, oregano, pepper, basil….

And salt. He always searches for salt.

As his hand closes around a container of cayenne pepper he has to smile. Iara, a little Slayer from Brazil, one of the girls who actually seemed to enjoy helping him with the cooking, name was coming up. She always lamented the food was too bland. Now he couldn't wait to see what the others thought when it was her turn to choose.

Andrew remembers a quote once that an army marches on its stomach. He's never seen Slayers march, they're not really the sort. Even now, all in a group, as close to an army as they've ever been they still can't be contained by those human terms - more supernatural than not a lot of the times. Tracking their prey with something beyond the five sense available to the normal homo sapiens.

But normal has changed. _This_ is his is normal now. And his group of superheros is going to fight, full and happy, for as long as he has any say in it..


	9. Chain

Title: Chain  
>Author: smolder<br>Disclaimer: I own nothing. Joss owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Walking Dead is by Robert Kirkmen. I repeat, I own nothing.  
>AN: Reviews are Good. This has been a subtle hint from the author - Please return to your regularly scheduled reading.

Faith feels vaguely guilty (and guilt still feels like such a new thing for her. Something fresh yet already rusted - that is permanently linked to her forever) for the fact that she likes this life.

But hunting day and night, living just on the edge of being feral before skirting back with a smirk on your lips and a twist of your hips – well, Faith is quite familiar with that existence, has always played that game.

And now, now she is surrounded by others to live this life not only beside her but with her. Without judging her for it. People who trust and respect her completely - and God damn, when, can someone fuckin' tell her when, did that become so important to her?

She lays down her weapons within reach and curls up beside Willow when it is time to rest, burying her nose in familiar red hair. And it is hard for her to think about the past – before the world narrowed down to _the hunt_. Any bad feelings that had once existed between the two of them simply disappeared after they became each others' partners. You just can't have that when you are putting your life in that persons hands, the day in and day out reality of necessity and comfort simply over writes old hurts until they almost cease to exist.

Faith lives in the moment, she always has. Right now she will savor her full stomach and the warmth intertwined with her own. The feeling of the fire almost too hot at her back and the little movements that create a sea of background noise – the sense of family all around her. Soon she will have to get up for her turn on watch and tomorrow they will continue to hunt, going where it seems right – where the Slayer inside them lets them know is _right_.

And it _all_ feels _right _to her.

Faith has to wonder when the guilt will stop feeling new.


	10. Unknown

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Joss owns Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Walking Dead is by Robert Kirkmen. I repeat, I own nothing.  
>AN: Reviews are Good. This has been a subtle hint from the author - Please return to your regularly scheduled reading.

He has noticed a hyperawareness in himself. A jumpiness really, he supposes.

But, he _feels _them moments before he hears them.

Hears them before he sees them too, of course, but that hardly seems like a statement (even in his head) with the way they scream.

But he does feel them, his whole body tensing and he looks up at ceiling as if something was going to happen. Bad weather or something, he supposes although this really isn't the season for twisters and he really doesn't want to think about what having a tornado on top of all of this would mean anyway.

Then the noise started.

First one war-cry followed by a multitude. Then there was simply a roar of noise – many feet charging, fighting, the occasional gunshots.

For a prolonged moment he simply stared at his carefully covered window across the room. Afraid to even look.

Finally the curiosity, the simple fact that this was _different_ from his monotonous day-to-day life of surviving alone in this fucking house made him walk over and rip the sheets from the nails, so that he could see out.

It was all women that he could see. Hundreds of them. They would branch off as they ran by taking out Walkers all down his street. One girl split off from the group wielding only a knife and pounced, much farther than any human should be able to, upon the zombie on his porch, only a few feet away from where he was looking dazedly out the window.

As soon as she landed upon its back (and he heard something snap within the rotting creature breaking her fall), her dark, direct gaze shot up to meet his. Somehow having sensed instantly that he was there.

And a feeling went through him, totally animal – rabbit-like: eyes wide, stock still. Hoping, just hoping, if it doesn't twitch, doesn't blink, doesn't _breathe_ that the wolf somehow won't be able to see it.

She kept eye contact as she very deliberately pulled her weapon out of the things shoulder, and then proceeded to saw off the head of the moaning zombie she just downed with only a stiletto knife - something in her gaze sharp and pleased. The head dropped away from the rest of the body and she stood slowly.

"Dana!" someone yelled from up the street and her head whipped around, her expression instantly becoming joyful as she loped after the others.

He has been instantly forgotten.

Something for which he was grateful. Now he can breathe again.

The zombies are horrible (that seems to be able to go without saying) but he had grown to understand them as much as he felt he could. He had _no _idea what those were - those things that looked like little girls but ran through like locust, leaving death in their wake.

And frankly, _that_ terrified him.


End file.
